


blue//

by doubt



Series: ::INTHEDARK [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternative Universe - Dystopia, M/M, Songfic, tech depression, yeah that's a thing now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubt/pseuds/doubt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blue//

**Author's Note:**

> i literally only wrote this to put off doing my comms homework and updating my ~other fic~ but it's a concept i kinda wanna explore

_Your little brother never tells you, but he loves you so._

Jordan cried silently the day Josh had to leave, because he didn’t want to be the caregiver in the family. Their momma was sick, see, and although Ashley was old enough to take care of her mother and younger siblings, she was also old enough to have a choice. Dad and Josh weren’t there anymore. Abbie was only ten.

_You said your mother only smiled on her TV show._

The “perfect family” façade was hard to keep up now that a third of it was gone. Still, Momma kept trying, and advertising for the Cloud was the only way to make near-immediate cash.

_You’re only happy when your sorry head is filled with dope._

Whenever Josh was offered a hit, he took it, because that was really the only source of pleasure available to him this far out. He wished he could write to his family but he couldn’t.

_I’ll hope you make it to the day you’re twenty eight years old._

They took him on his eighteenth birthday. _I have almost ten years left_ , he thought.

_You’re dripping like a saturated sunrise._

Showers were white and abrasive, and you were supposed to reuse the same bucket of sand as many times as possible. Josh missed the cool blue he grew up with. It was only available in miniscule amounts these days, and when it was available it was consumed, never used to properly sluice the sweat and soot off of scratched, sandy skin.

_You’re spilling like an overflowing sink._

Josh cried himself to sleep on Sundays. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays were twenty four hour work days, and on Saturdays he was far too exhausted to devote even five minutes to his sorrow.

_You’re ripped at every edge, but you’re a masterpiece._

The teenagers showered in their clothes every second week, every second shower. Josh needed to repair his sleeves; they were damaged and his pale skin was burning red in the heat he was regularly exposed to.

_And now you’re tearing through the pages and the ink._

“ _Jordan, I wish I could come home. But I can’t. So tell everyone hi for me. And happy thirteenth, if your birthday has come along. It feels like it’s been about a year since I left._ ” The letter was screwed up and shoved into Josh’s pockets. It had been three months.

_Everything is blue, his pills, his hands, his jeans._

They were only sugar pills, poor excuses for placebos, but they helped numb him to the constant judgement sent his way by contemporaries and the Ones In Power alike. Tyler took them too. That was how they met. Josh’s matchbox of Glucodril was knocked out of his hand onto the dirt by some insensitive soul, and Tyler noticed and decided that Josh needed the pills more than he did.

_And now I’m covered in the colors, pull apart at the seams._

One day Josh was presented with a bucket of red sand. Courtesy of Tyler, who was higher graded because of his skills and the amount of time he’d been away from home for. “I was twelve,” the boy said, head rested on Josh’s shoulder. Josh was avoiding manual labor under the pretense of helping Tyler test equipment. “My dad wanted money he didn’t need. I guess he also wanted to get rid of me and my brother.”

_And it’s blue._

“Who’s your brother?”

_And it’s blue._

“Blurry. He died. They tried to get me back home after that, but they couldn’t. Then, on my fifteenth birthday, they gave me the option of going home or being upgraded. I wanted to go home. They said my family went into, like, witness protection or something, and sending me back would endanger their safety. They probably don’t want me anyway.” Josh didn’t see why anyone would reject Tyler, with his sweet disposition and sunny attitude. He kissed Tyler’s cheek to reassure him.

_Everything is gray, his hair, his smoke, his dreams._

Josh had dyed his hair a shade of blue that his momma said she loved before he left. It was faded to a silvery white now. Josh missed his momma.

_And now he’s so devoid of color, he don’t know what it means._

He was exposed to the Overground for the first time in four months, and it nearly blinded him. There was a bright green dome stretching over the town they were in, and the intensity was all Josh could see for days afterward.

_And he’s blue._

“I’m not allowed out anymore,” said Tyler, doodling a little green alien on Josh’s inner wrist.

_And he’s blue._

“I wish you were, Ty. It looks awful inside the domes but it’s better than down here. I hate fluorescent lights.”

_You were a vision in the morning when the light came through._

Tyler snuck into Josh’s bunk while he was sleeping one Saturday night. He woke up the next morning, surprisingly well rested. “My birthday was on Friday,” Tyler said.

_I know I’ve only felt religion when I’ve lied with you._

“You’re eighteen now, right? That means you don’t have to go to the church service.” Tyler grinned. He hated the mandatory church services.

_He said, “You’ll never be forgiven, till your boys are too.”_

“God probably hates you for saying that.” Josh shrugged. He hated himself as well.

_And I’m still waking every morning, but it’s not with you._

Tyler didn’t sneak into Josh’s bed on Sunday nights because he had to work.

_You’re dripping like a saturated sunrise._

He hadn’t seen the sky in three years. Josh changed that, taking Tyler up with him despite rules and regulations. He almost cried when he saw the sunrise, because back in his hometown he would ride his bike to the watchtower in the center of the city and watch sunup every single day. “The viewing platform’s the only place you can see the sun from in my hometown. The streetlights are on all day because it’s so dark. I’ll take you one day,” Tyler said, hugging Josh almost too hard. “Thank you for this.”

_You’re spilling like an overflowing sink._

“I broke the water main in my town once,” Josh said. “No water for five days. They didn’t find out who broke it but I got punished along with all the boys my age.” Tyler promised not to tell anyone.

_You’re ripped at every edge, but you’re a masterpiece._

“The sleeves make you look more punk.”

_And now you’re tearing through the pages and the ink._

“They don’t care how punk I am, Ty.”

_Everything is blue, his pills, his hands, his jeans._

Tyler’s kisses were like sugar pills to Josh’s bruised hands, the result of one hundred and thirty two hour work weeks.

_And now I’m covered in the colors, pull apart at the seams._

The sleeves of Josh’s shirt fell off, so Tyler got him a new one. He still wore the sleeveless one sometimes, because it was punk.

_And it’s blue._

“When I get out of here, will you come with me?” Josh asked.

_And it’s blue._

“Yes.”

_Everything is gray, his hair, his smoke, his dreams._

Josh replaced the sugar pills with cigarettes. There was lots of tobacco underground.

_And now he’s so devoid of color, he don’t know what it means._

The green of his ripped shirt had faded to black over the last year. “I’m nineteen now,” he said early on a Monday morning.

_And he’s blue._

“Happy birthday, Josh. I love you.”

_And he’s blue._

“I love you too, Tyler.”

_You were red._

Tyler managed to scavenge some hair dye and gave it to Josh. It had been a year and a half but the natural dark brown still hadn’t grown back in past his roots.

_And you liked me, ‘cause I was blue._

Tyler’s work schedule meant that he had more bruises than he did when Josh met him.

_But you touched me, and suddenly I was a lilac sky._

They worked well together. Josh and Tyler. A match made in programming, definitely.

_Then you decided purple just wasn’t for you._

They could only go home on their birthdays. Tyler and Josh’s birthdays were half a year apart.

_Everything is blue, his pills, his hands, his jeans._

“They’re overworking me.” It took a lot of effort for Tyler to sit up. “Engineers can escape easier than everyone else because we have the tech. So they either give us less work or give us more things.” He’d given his jeans to Josh.

_And now I’m covered in the colors, pull apart at the seams._

Tyler wanted to leave.

_And it’s blue._

“I’m running away.”

_And it’s blue._

“I’ll help you, Ty.”

_Everything is gray, his hair, his smoke, his dreams._

Josh didn’t know how to escape, but Tyler did and he trusted Tyler. He didn’t have very high expectations. He hoped his family still thought about him.

_And now he’s so devoid of color, he don’t know what it means._

“Put this on, Josh.” It was a sun yellow mask that only covered his nose. “They won’t recognize you.”

_And he’s blue._

They didn’t recognize Josh.

_And he’s blue._

Or Tyler.

_Everything is blue._

Tyler managed to get a plane from the hangar where he’d worked when he was sixteen. “You’re a solid ten and a half, Ty.”

_Everything is blue._

“So are you. Wanna learn how to fly?”

_Everything is blue._

“Sure.”

_Everything is blue._

Ten and a half plus ten and a half equals twenty one.

**Author's Note:**

> i hate alliterating in stories whyd i do that
> 
> there are mosquito bites all over my legs i am Suffering like im wearing tights how the hek did i get mosquito bites
> 
> also ten and a half does not refer to inCHES GOD GET URmind out of the GUTTER


End file.
